Our Blog
The Derdack SIGNL4 blog is an essential hub for professionals aiming to boost their alert management and operational response. It delivers expert insights and tips on maximizing SIGNL4 for efficient alerting, team collaboration, and incident management. Ideal for IT, operations, and security teams, this blog offers practical guidance for enhancing response times and operational workflows.
How SIGNL4 supports alert severity
Event and alert severity are extremely important information for an effective alert management and response. Severity information determine the speed of response, needed resource allocation and the action path taken. Naturally, critical alerts have higher priority...
December 2019 Update 2: Alert Counters, Category Subscription, Webhook Format
Our 2nd December update adds alert counters to the web app, allows for disabling the opt-in/out from "Services & Systems" categories and adds a new encoding format to the SIGNL4 webbhook. New webhook payload format The SIGNL4 webhook now also digest payload of...
December 2019 Update: User roles, App enhancements and Azure Sentinel integration
Our December update includes a new role model for users in a SIGNL4 team, great new app features and integration with Azure Sentinel. Introducing user roles Two default user roles are now available in each SIGNL4 team: Administrator and User. This allows for...
Enable SSO and MFA by adding SIGNL4 as an enterprise app in Entra ID
This article describes how SIGNL4 can be generally authorized as an enterprise app for Entra ID users (Marketplace Link). This is important if you want to implement the use of SIGNL4 in your company with existing user accounts from the Entra ID. Attention: Please,...
October 2019 Update: Improved usability and new emergency alarm triggering in the app
The October update of the mobile app includes the improvements described below and the user experience includes a new feature. Simplified handling of categories The user interface of the app has been improved so that you can now decide for yourself if you want to see...
September 2019 Update: Improved assigning of categories
Our September update improves the assignment of categories to Signl alerts, hence the enrichment and routing of alerts to the right people. New Category Assignment Operator Until now, a 'Services & Systems' category was assigned to a Signl alert, if at least one...
August 2019 Update: Mobile Alert Dashboard and PSD2 Support
Our August update makes SIGNL4 fit for the new "Payment Services Directive 2". In addition, we have added extended the mobile alert dashboard and added new metrics. The enhanced dashboard of the SIGNL4 mobile app now shows alert counters per 'services & systems'...
July 2019 Update: Alert Opt-In and Out, Apps Section and Getting Started
July 2019 Update introduces the option to opt-out for certain categories as well as some enhancements in the Web portal. Manage which alerts you want and how: 'Services & Systems' Category Opt-Out You can now opt-in/out of certain categories under Settings ->...
Welcome to our Partner Program – SIGNL4Partners
We are super-excited about launching our new referral partner program, SIGNL4Partners. The program is dedicated to solution providers and system integrators just like you. Any company can join the program, no matter if you are an IoT Hardware vendor or specialize in...
May 2019 Update: Response Metrics, Multi-Alert Actions and Web Signup
The May 2019 Update introduces web sign-up and some great, long-awaited mobile app enhancements! Mobile App: Multi-Alert Confirmation and Resolution We have added the capability to confirm and resolve multiple alert signls at once. Simply tap the new 3-dot-button on...
Unexpected IT downtime costs your business more than you think
IT downtime can effect businesses of all sizes. From online retailers and event promoters to cloud-based service providers and 24/7 security teams, all modern businesses are at risk of facing both monetary and organizational costs that can stack up in a matter of...
Alert escalation – How it works in SIGNL4
This article explains the simplicity and effectiveness of alert escalation in SIGNL4. The case for alert escalations Part of any managers role is to make sure their team is taking accountability. Managers are not the front lines resolvers that handle issues, that is...
SIEM Alerting with SIGNL4
Many businesses of all sizes are now aware of the never-ending security risks that threaten the condition of their IT infrastructure. Larger companies have begun to adopt Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) software solutions to assist in the daily...
April 2019 Update: Event Filtering
This update introduces an effective mechanism for event filtering to SIGNL4. You can now use the keywords of your 'services & systems' categories as a whitelist. If you enable this keyword whitelist, SIGNL4 performs a keyword search across all parameters and...
February 2019 Update: Convenient Duty and Shift Scheduling in your Browser
The February 2019 update brings the long anticipated duty and shift scheduling. It further improves SIGNL4's capabilities of delivering the right information to the right people at the right time. Shift Scheduling Basics Shift scheduling in SIGNL4 is done through the...
Never Miss After-Hours Customer Calls to Your Service Hotline
An upset customer is calling your service hotline in the middle of night because an important system stopped working. A sleepy engineer, just woken up by that call, somehow tries to answer the bullet-like questions of your customer. The result: unhappiness on both...
Mobile B2B SaaS Success – Q&A with Matthes Derdack
SIGNL4 is a mobile SaaS solution built to address the needs of on-the-go operations teams across many industries. Stemming from German parent company, Derdack, SIGNL4 looks to provide agility and reliability where other solutions on the market may not. Aside from its...
SIGNL4 Alert and Shift Reports with Microsoft Excel
Though SIGNL4 does not provide canned reports (yet), it allows for downloading all required data of on-call times, alerts and responses. Hence all it takes is an external tool to process and analyze those logs. Shift and alerts logs can be used to review workload of...
December 2018 Update: The magic of Alert Enrichment through Categorization
The update of December 2018 adds great features for enriching Signls with additional information ('alert enrichment'). With "Services and Systems" categories, SIGNL4 already comes with an unique approach of categorizing alerts through colouring and acoustics, i.e. a...
Smart City – Automatically Dispatch Snow Clearing Teams Upon Weather Alerts
Many cities provide snow clearing services. It is especially important at night to inform teams about snow warnings as snow accumulation can be troublesome for the masses in the morning of the following day. When to expect snow can be found online, but is this form of...
November 2018 Update: Multi-Team Licensing
The November update introduces central management and licensing of multiple teams. Multiple teams can now be billed through a single account. This eases purchasing and license management for anybody with more than one team on SIGNL4. Additionally, teams can centrally...
Query email mailbox (Gmail) with Zapier to trigger SIGNL4 alert notifications
Sometimes you need to query an existing mailbox for specific emails instead of forwarding emails directly to your SIGNL4 team email address. This example uses Zapier to query a Gmail mail account. New emails with specific content then trigger alert notifications...
The New Norm – How Consumerization Trends Impact the B2B Software Business
Business-to-business, also known as B2B, has not always been recognized as the glamorous side of marketing and sales no matter what industry. This is even more evident when discussing the sale of software and enterprise applications. Previously, this was a rather...
Real-time mobile alerts for monitoring of dry contacts with Web-IO from Wiesemann & Theis
Machines, pumps, valves, fire alert systems, temperature sensors, smoke detectors, etc. often do not offer IT integration. Instead, they provide simple analog cables to interface with dry contacts. Monitoring these I/O states and detecting abnormal behavior or...
How we view partnership at SIGNL4
Imagine being a child on a playground. You see other children playing tag, climbing, sliding, laughing... and you are digging in the sandbox alone. You are content, but you question if this is the best way to go about your day. Sure, you can go play on the swings for...
Google Assistant – Alert and Notify your Response Team
In a previous article we've shown how to send alerts to SIGNL4 from Amazon Alexa. It is also possible to do the same using the Google Assistant, either on your mobile device or using your Google Home speaker. Setting it up is easy if you are tech-savvy. You need an...
IoT Platforms are lacking effective Alerting for Mobile Operations Teams
The Internet of Things (IoT) has become an exciting area of work. Businesses are rapidly adapting various IoT products whether they realize it or not. Thanks to the booming development of Internet of Things, users across industries can now easily monitor, trigger, and...
Boost Agility of Shop Floor Teams for Industry 4.0 with Mobile Alerting
*This article was first published on Microsoft's Manufacturing Industry Blog on July 17, 2018. The fourth industrial revolution, Industry 4.0, is happening today. Recent progress in manufacturing automation requires fewer individuals on a shop floor to do manual work...
Four Cool IoT Devices Paving the Way for IoT Market Growth
The development and rise of cool, tiny and smart devices of all shapes and functions is the foundation of the Internet of Things (IoT). Many of these mechanisms shared below are relatively small in size, but do not let that fool you. These are powerful products that...
The Internet of Things is Driving our Future
We live in an age of hyper-connectedness. Specific-function devices are now able to relay information to networks in real-time with ease. To put it simply, we live among the Internet of Things (IoT). In this article, we will dive into what IoT is, where it is headed,...
Mobile Apps, and the Future of Field Service Management and Dispatching
Field service management (FSM) is the business-official way of mentioning all the operational and administrative work that goes into on-location service delivery. In other words, FSM is the juggling act that involves everything from accounting and customer...
Separating Alert Signals from Notification Overload
On our smart phones, we receive an abundance of personal and business push notifications every day. Business and business-critical push notifications are meant to be read, ideally acknowledged, and acted on in an attentive manner. The problem is that people cannot...
June 2018 Update: Team Acknowledgements and Sending of Alerts from a Web Browser
June 2018 update brings two cool features: Acknowledgement of alerts by all team members (on duty) Sending of alerts to the team from a Web Browser Happy exploring! Group alerting with multiple acknowledgements There are multiple models of how many people are required...
Get a mobile alert when your Internet link is down
The app-based alerting service SIGNL4, enables you to send alerts from your corporate infrastructure via e-mail or webhook. Your team will then receive the notifications by push, SMS or phone call. But what if the Internet connection is no longer available and you...
Five SaaS Tools to Optimize Team Productivity
In the digital age, it is extremely helpful to have Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tools in place to maximize team productivity. SaaS tools are great because they take essential work tasks, and slim them down into user-friendly web and mobile applications. Below I have...
Push, text and voice notifications from Google Forms
SIGNL4 offers easy-to-use interfaces for triggering notifications, e.g. email and Webhook. In some scenarios you might want to send signals manually from a Web portal. Google Forms is one option to add this feature to SIGNL4. The following steps show you how to setup...
May 2018 Update: Text and Voice Calls, Geo Location, Flood Protection, AppConfig enhancements
We are incredibly proud to announce the May 2018 update, which adds the following new features to SIGNL4: Persistent alert notifications via text and voice call In-app triggered alerts transmit current geographic location Alerts can be enriched with maps and...
April 2018 Update: API Enhancements, Duty Length, Countries, Splunk
The April 2018 update adds the following new features to SIGNL4: New methods and method enhancements for the REST API and webhook A new duty & shift length of 14 days Availability in new countries Happy exploring! Outbound webhooks: Correlate alert-status changes...
Mobile ChatOps built-in
When a critical problem needs attention, advice from peers and experts is often valuable. While a phone call might be the fastest way to communicate, there can be circumstances where it doesn't work or isn't appropriate. That is why we built a chat feature into...
Android settings for making SIGNL4 an even better paging app
The problem with push notifications as an alarm channel is that they don't really alert you when the phone is set to "Do not disturb". The mobile phone will vibrate only, if at all. Important alarms will be missed. That might turn into a true disaster for critical...
February 18 Update: Alert Audit Trail, Management of 3rd Party Apps
The February 2018 update adds the following new features to SIGNL4: CSV alert protocols, e.g. for Excel import and analytics Management of linked third-party applications, e. g. Alexa Skill CSV audit trail log of all alarms and notifications With the help of the CSV...
Shift Scheduling with StaffHub – Alerting with SIGNL4
Microsoft StaffHub is deprecated. You can use SIGNL4’s built-in scheduling for your shifts and on-call planning. Or, you can also use the REST API (e.g. with Microsoft Power Automate) for integrating with your own scheduling tools. We live in a somewhat paradoxical...
Mobile Business Notifications with Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM
Managers and executives are always interested in current company data and KPIs ("key performance indicators"). This includes information about the current monthly and annual turnover. But also promising customer requests (A leads) that may require the collaboration of...
Amazon Alexa – Send Alerts and Notify your Response Team
With Amazon Alexa, the Internet giant, Amazon, has quickly established itself as a leading company in the field of digital assistants with speech recognition. We here at Derdack SIGNL4 believe that speech recognition will play an enormously important role in the near...
Emergency Notifications for Patient Bedside Monitoring using mobile Apps
Modern alerting systems based on mobile apps can achieve significant efficiency gains in healthcare and reduce the working pressure on nursing staff. Here we describe how such a solution is used for patient and bedside monitoring. Challenges in patient bedside...
Mobile Alerting complements SCADA systems in the Utilities Sector
Utilities companies represent a particular challenge for modern alarm solutions complementing SCADA systems. Due to the decentralised distribution of installations and plants in rural and urban areas, operation, maintenance and repair are already associated with...
Machine Breakdown Maintenance Call using the AWS IoT Button
Urgent breakdown maintenance calls are a common scenario on a shop floor, e.g. in manufacturing or logistics. Response is a critical matter as equipment breakdowns bring your operations to a grinding halt. When a machine breaks down or malfunctions, a maintenance...
AWS CloudWatch Alarms to your mobile phone during after-business hours
If you are using AWS CloudWatch for monitoring your AWS assets 24/7, an effective routing of alarms to IT personnel during after-business-hours is essential for a swift handling of any problems and incidents occurring any given time of the day. This post explains how...
Sending Alerts from a Desktop Browser with zapier
How can you quickly send an urgent alert to a response team from your desktop browser? Here is a pretty slick example for Google Chrome implemented with zapier and SIGNL4. SIGNL4 is for sending persistent mobile alerts to your response team. It provides for simple...
How reliably is your IT team notified when your website is down?
Nowadays most IT admins will get an email if their website monitoring solution detects a health issue or a website down. Maybe your entire team gets an email. But how likely are you to check your inbox every minute. And don't you want share on-call duty across your...
